âIt weighs eighteen kilos,â Nina whispers, her posture impossibly regal. âBut Florian taught me: the weight isnât a burden. Itâs an anchor. You donât walk in his clothes. You root .â
Outside, the Vienna rain begins to fall. And a dozen guests, already wearing Poddelkaâs metallic lace or chainmail cuffs, step out into it unbothered. For them, the night has only just begun. Florian Poddelka Nude
The first room features suits. Or, what used to be suits. One jacket, suspended in a vitrine like a rare butterfly, has its shoulder pads exploded outward, stitched with copper wire and fragments of shattered mirror. Another hangs off a hyper-articulated mannequin, its back slashed open to reveal a corset of industrial zip-ties. The placard reads: âPower Dressing for the Apocalypse.â A young collector in a pristine Thom Browne blazer stares at it, mouth slightly agape. âIt weighs eighteen kilos,â Nina whispers, her posture
â The invitation said simply: âFlorian Poddelka. Come as you arenât.â And the crowd that spilled into the cavernous, raw-concrete space of the old Umspannwerk transformer station on Tuesday night did exactly that. You donât walk in his clothes
And fight they do. The exhibition is arranged in five âchapters,â each a radical reinterpretation of a wardrobe staple.